Navasota ISD board of trustees to call for May bond election

NAVASOTA, Texas (KBTX) – The Navasota bond totals $74 million and residents zoned for Navasota ISD will vote on the bond in the May election.

Navasota ISD superintendent, Dr. Stu Musick, says he hopes voters will help the district prepare for the future.

“With more growth coming throughout all of Navasota ISD both to the northwest side in Brazos County as well as to the southeast part of Grimes County as well,” said Musick.

Voters will get the chance to sign off on two bonds in May’s general election.

“Proposition A is a 71 million dollar proposal and Proposition B is a 3 million dollar proposal,” said Musick.

If passed, he says Proposition A would build a new elementary school, new school buses, and land for future schools. Additionally, Proposition A would improve several school facilities.

Proposition B lets the district move some money around, from Maintenance and Operations to Interest and Sinking, or debt servicing. In the process, they’d free up a half million dollars for maintenance.

Musick says this bond will not raise taxes.

“The timing of this and being able to do that and go out for a tax increase bond is for a couple of reasons. For one, this law just changed, the homeowners got a homestead increase from $40,000 to $100,000. Along with some previous bonds being able to be paid off, some of those bonds being able to be paid early or being able to be paid down,” said Musick. “When the law changed from this past legislative session, this school finance formula changed completely as well. When that formula was re-done, we asked our financial advisor to help us take a look to see what this would mean to the school district, good or bad, and as we took a look at this, the timing of it as well as being able to pay off some pre-existing debts from previous bonds, helped us be able to put together a package that would be very beneficial and be able to do that with both propositions with zero tax increase. “

Rachel Walker, Grimes County Elections Administrator, says anyone zoned for Navasota ISD can vote on the bonds this May.

“You have to live in the school district in order to vote on Navasota ISD’s bond so if your home resides in that district and you’re zoned in that district you can register and be eligible to vote for Navasota’s ISD’s bond,” said Walker.

“The southern portions of Grimes County and the southern portions of Brazos County make up Navasota ISD so those will be the voters for this election,” said Musick.

The district is inviting voters to attend what they’re calling rattle sessions to learn more about the bond.

Early voting begins April 22nd and Grimes County will have three available voting locations then.

There will be a total of 8 voting locations in Grimes County on May 4th. Nearly 7200 residents could see the bond on their ballot.